Financial planners and money managers coming under the watch of New Jersey this year can view state oversight and examinations as something of a seal of approval, according to the head of New Jersey’s Bureau of Securities.

“To the extent that the investing public knows that we are on the job, then they can feel some comfort dealing with folks who have been through our registration process and are subject to our authority,” Abbe Tiger, chief of the bureau, told a gathering of investment advisers today.

Her comments, made to about two dozen members of the Financial Planning Association of New Jersey at a Woodbridge hotel, were a part an outreach effort to a swath of financial firms that the state will soon regulate.

A provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act requires so-called midsized investment advisers, or those that manage asset pools of between $25 million and $100 million, to switch from federal to state regulation. The move is intended to relieve an overtaxed Securities and Exchange Commission, which has seen its registry of adviser firms swell to more than 11,500 in recent years.

Nationwide, about 4,000 midsized advisers are expected to register with the states by late June. Between 100 and 150 of these firms are joining the Bureau of Securities’ roster, Tiger said.

Getting ready for the change has been a priority for the bureau, Tiger said. It has hired four new investigators last month, and plans to add another two, to help it review the registration forms that incoming advisers will submit in the coming months. It also has added resources to its website.

The switch has its perks for firms used to the SEC’s requirements. For one, some compliance costs are less, as firms are not required to maintain tailored manuals of policies and procedures. Tiger also pledged to let firms know when the state has closed an examination of firms, something that does not always happen under the SEC.

Kenneth Shapiro, whose Hazlet-based Shapiro Financial Security Group manages about $45 million in assets, said he’s not worried about being overseen by New Jersey. It is registering with other states, he said. While advisers will be overseen principally by their home state, they also have to sign up with the states in which they have significant business, generally five or more clients. This may cause firms headaches if one state’s standards conflict with another's, he said.